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Dozens of G-20 arrests wind through Pittsburgh Municipal Court
Oct 24, 2009 (The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Adam Dulak said he wasn't thinking about the Group of 20 summit at midnight Sept. 25 when he stepped out of Peter's Pub on Oakland Avenue.
His girlfriend had tried to call him, but he couldn't hear her voice over the noise in the crowded bar, so he sent her a text message that he was coming to see her and stepped outside, Dulak said during his hearing Friday in Pittsburgh Municipal Court.
"I looked up from my phone, saw (a gas cloud) coming my way, inhaled it and went to my knee," said Dulak, 22, of Windber.
Dulak was one of 72 people scheduled to appear in court yesterday on charges stemming from the September G-20 economic summit.
Nine cases were postponed for technical reasons, and 36 were postponed as part of a plea that calls for the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office to drop charges against the defendants if they perform 50 hours of community service in the next three months. Prosecutors withdrew charges in two of the cases, and four cases were dismissed.
Three people pleaded guilty to their charges. One case was held for trial, and the defendant in another case waived the preliminary hearing so the case can proceed to trial. Three defendants failed to show for their hearings.
Dulak was one of about a dozen defendants who decided to fight the charges. District Judge Anthony W. Saveikis found Dulak guilty of two summary offenses -- obstructing a highway and disorderly conduct. About 10 other people were found guilty on similar charges.
Pittsburgh police Detective Dave Honick said Dulak was one of about 25 people who had gathered on Oakland Avenue after police pushed several hundred people out of Schenley Plaza and then off Forbes Avenue. The group started walking toward him and another officer at the intersection of Oakland and Forbes, Honick said.
Most of the crowd left, he said, after the two officers used a handheld smoke device and a kind of pepper spray to form a barrier between themselves and the group.
"Dulak walked through the smoke toward me," Honick said.
After Dulak ignored repeated orders to turn around and leave, Honick said he used a second burst of pepper spray. Dulak fell to the ground, and the officers arrested him.
Chuck Pascal, an Armstrong County lawyer who was acting as a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild during the G-20, said Dulak and Michael McDermot, 22, of McCandless had stepped out of the pub only a few seconds before Dulak was arrested.
Honick testified that Dulak was in the middle of the street, but Pascal and McDermot said he was on the sidewalk when the pepper spray incapacitated him.
To see more of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review or to subscribe to the newspaper,
go to http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/. Copyright (c) 2009, The
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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